Interviewed in Moscow and Siberia over four days by reporter Stephanie Baker, the future owner of the Nets said the term “oligarch” shouldn’t apply to him, because “an oligarch is rich and has political power. I’m a businessman. Every businessman has a relationship with the government ... I’m not into politics.”

Still, Prokhorov admitted, he last paid a bribe “15 years ago, the last time. I need to be frank.”

Prokhorov admits that he is stepping away from his gold and metals holdings and is looking to expand his interests in areas such as debt restructuring and hybrid cars, and he seeks partners outside of Russia.

Hence, his purchase of the Nets — which is to be ratified by an NBA Board of Governors vote April 16 — is about more than basketball. It’s about visibility and globalization.

“It’s about opening up other business opportunities in the U.S.,” Prokhorov said. “If I want to do something else, people won’t say, ‘Who’s that?’ They’ll say, ‘That’s the owner of the Nets.’ ”

Indeed, the story states that Prokhorov “originally went after the New York Knicks because of their Manhattan base. They weren’t for sale.” That was what led Nets owner Bruce Ratner to the Russian, on advice from NBA commissioner David Stern.

Eventually, Prokhorov expects to make a profit from his 80-percent ownership of the Nets, and his 45-percent ownership of the Atlantic Yards project. But the president of Russia’s largest private bank said that is not the point.

“They’re playing with toys,” Petr Aven of Alfa Bank said of Prokhorov’s “vanity” purchase of the Nets. “Those aren’t business decisions at all.”

The piece also includes interviews with a dozen other allies, acquaintances and experts, including former business partner Alexander Khloponin, who says Prokhorov “calculates his risks 10 times before he invests.”

As for the trappings of affluence, he owns a Gulfstream jet, a yacht called “Solemar” that he bought for $45 million but rarely uses (he gets seasick), and a sprawling, gated estate about 45 minutes from Moscow.

He rarely drinks — he sipped mineral water during a visit to a Moscow gentleman’s club called Soho Rooms — and he has never tasted vodka.

But the story also calls Prokhorov “old world.” He does not carry a cell phone, his office desk has no computer, and he has looked at the Internet only three times.

Until five years ago, when he was already fabulously wealthy, he lived with his older sister in a 500-square-foot Moscow apartment that had belonged to their parents, the story states.

Both parents are deceased. Prokhorov’s father, Dmitry, ran the international department of the USSR Sports Committee in the 1970s. His job took him to the U.S., and he would tell his son of life in the West. Among the first gifts he brought him was a Sharp radio-cassette player that allowed the young man to hear Voice of America radio. (Prokhorov posed with the boom-box-sized unit for the story.)

In the 1980s, the KGB tried to recruit Dmitry Prokhorov, and his wife threatened divorce if he accepted. That refusal cost him his job, and forced him to take a position at a sports institute, his son said.

Prokhorov’s grandmother, a biologist, also lived with the family. She spent much of her life with a suitcase packed, on expectations that she would suffer the same fate of her colleagues, who were sent to Stalin’s gulags.

Prokhorov served two years in the Soviet army, supported his family by working two jobs, and attended the Moscow Finance Institute during the collapse of the Soviet Union — propitious timing, as this was the training ground for state banks that ran the planned economy.

While still at the institute in 1988, he launched a very profitable venture: making stone-washed jeans.

With the restructuring of the economy in full swing (known as Perestroika), Russians were starved for such Western goods, and Prokhorov made 14 rubles for every one he spent in his first year alone.

That business grew to employ 300 people.

The impact of this experience was profound:

“It was the first time in my life I had pleasure from money,” Prokhorov said. “Nothing has come to beat that feeling.”

The '60 Minutes' profile, which included his first U.S. television interview, included a segment in which Prokhorov admitted, “I am addicted to sport. Without sport, I feel bad. In this case it is some kind of drug.”

Both stories traced his famous split with longtime partner Vladimir Potanin. Remarkably, this divorce was a result of Prokhorov’s famous arrest in Courchevel, France, in January 2007 on suspicions of hiring prostitutes.

As a result of this public humiliation, Potanin convinced Prokhorov to sell his 25 percent stake in Norilsk Nickel. While Prokhorov sold out and invested in RusAl — the world’s largest aluminum producer — Norilsk shares sank 71 percent in the eight months following the transaction.

If not for the Courchevel incident (“absolutely a police misunderstanding,” he called it), Prokhorov may not have become Russia’s richest man.

“It’s a part of any business — to be lucky,” he told Steve Kroft of CBS. “Miracle happens.”Dave D'Alessandro may be reached at ddalessandro@starledger.com